> The international community may not pay much attention to a conflict unless there is media focus on the issue, and the news media are unlikely to pay attention unless there is violence and havoc. [...] The problem of the entertainment-centered media strategies is thus rooted not in ethical flaws of individual editors, but in the fundamental economic structure of the media industry. It is therefore necessary to establish alternative non-profit news organizations to focus on dangerous conflicts and to offset the imbalance caused by the unequal access of the two parts to international news media and to remedy the problem that biased reporting is more profitable than balanced reporting.
I think too much is pinned on the door of the media when reporting on stories when:
(a) they are very far away and of little interest to people
(b) have very difficult solutions and enough nuances to make peoples eyes glaze over
(c) there is alternative coverage of other news that is more interesting
I take something like climate change which has had plenty of media attention, but until the first city sinks underwater there isn't going to be enough impetus for people to take the truly difficult actions. That moves it into the national spotlight and makes it a priority, similar to how terrorism on US soil changes "standard problems in the Middle East" into an important US issue.
> Another reason why the use of terrorism turns out to be counterproductive is that it weakens the ideological standing of the weak part. The ideological condemnation of terrorism for harming innocents is hard to argue against. The use of terrorism thus ruins the only truly efficient weapon that the weak part has: ideological warfare.
The resistance/terrorist/freedom fighter organisation's reputation is pretty worthless to begin with. Even if they're saints, no one is going to know about them or care. On the other hand, the powerful country/organization/political has an incredibly important reputation. It is absolutely worth it for the terrorist organisation to let their own reputation sink into the mud, if in doing so they can draw a response from the target that will tarnish its own reputation. It's like the relationship between politican and heckler; the heckler can say all kinds of things and people barely care, but if the politican really lets loose and responds in kind that can damage their image.